Last night I watched Conan O’Brien’s Cuba episode on Netflix, look for Conan without Borders, it was great. I recognized so many of the locations, one in particular, was the La Guarida Restaurant in Havana. We stopped there and spent hours photographing the architecture, the linens hanging to dry in a room I would kill for… (seriously this would be the most incredible studio, or place to live, work, or just own, put a chair and sit in) they hang their linens out to air dry in the space. We had an incredible lunch in the restaurant, photos of celebrities were all over the walls, I even took a picture of the Conan one, only to watch his visit a month later. Conan and I also made it to the roof to overlook the city. I am sure Conan was invited, I kind of just went up a ton of stairs and pretended I knew where I was going. The view is breathtaking. Other famous faces that have visited were Madonna, Beyonce, Jay Z, Bon Jovi, the funny thing was if this was in here in America I remember thinking I would have rolled my eyes that all these celebrities had been there, but turns out they just have excellent taste, because it was one of my favorite spots in Cuba.

The next chapter of Tim Rice Photo starts here… or well, it started in the spring and after meeting with banks, contractors, carpenters, town officials, permit people, banks, surveyors, banks again, town again, you get the idea… it starts here! I will be moving my studio from it’s current 243 Village St. to a new barn being built behind my house. Still in Medway and with major improvements over the current location. My high ceilings, additional space, two floors and more, all in a custom, post and beam, real deal barn. The marker stakes went up this morning thanks to O’Driscoll Land Surveying in Medway, the digging starts soon and fingers crossed it all will move quick and be ready to kick off as the new home for Tim Rice Photo January 1, 2019. In the meantime I am am still booking appointments at the current location, holiday sessions will be starting soon, and I will have plenty of updates on the Barn Raising Page you can follow along. For those who are interested, the barn is a pre-engineered, pre-cut, color-coded post and beam building kit from Country Carpenters in Hebron, CT. Check out their page, awesome stuff, there are a few already in Medway, I am excited to add to the collection.

The last night on the road, back in the Reykjavik apartment we started in last week. So I sat in the parking lot and sent the drone up above the city for a few minutes, at 10pm at night. I have not seen darkness in over a week, not sure how they do it here, but to be honest if I was 18 and just starting it all again, I would consider this as a home. The last photo is looking down on me from 400 feet. I am in the center of the the hotel block sitting next to a tree. I will really miss this place.

I pass this building a few times a month. Last night it was on the way to shoot Tres Hombres on my Photo Crawl. It is off Central St. in Milford, with the parking lot behind it. Not sure the story, but it is creepy looking in a cool way, especially at night.

Early this morning I picked up the keys to my new pad. 243 Village St, in my home town of Medway, MA. Let it be know this is the address of the next step for timricephoto. Over the last 3 Novembers I have scrabbled to find a space to set up galleries for the Holidays. With the help of a few friendly and supportive local business people, I have been lucky to find some spaces for my photos to be displayed, shoot some photos, but nothing that lasts more than a few weeks. The rest of the year timricephoto lives out of a truck. Driving from location to location, house to house, photographing all that that needs to be photographed. Quietly, I have been keeping my eyes open for this years space, but the desire for a short term showing was not there. I had decided, either I find a location where I can stretch out for awhile, or this would be the year I did not have a gallery. As much as I appreciated all the support for the short stay places over the years, the work and time that goes into a retail space for a week is draining. So I looked, and then I called, and now I have a space. I will be here as long as it makes sense.

This opens new avenues for me, and look forward to doing things I have not even thought of yet. Yes, there will be a gallery, Yes there will be shows, Yes, I will teach classes, Yes, this will be a studio. I have all I need to fill the space, just instead of unloading the truck for a week’s stay, I can let all the equipment and the photos breathe for awhile. First priority, to get it ready for some quick holiday photos and newborns (know anyone with a baby on the way -let them know, or maybe pick up a GC for the holidays). I looked at a few spaces, this might not be the perfect structure, but, well it spoke to me. It fits timricephoto, it fits me. I do this because I love it, I know that is not always the best business model, but I have grown trp as fast as I have wanted, I have been driving businesses on my own terms much of my life, from my one hour photo lab to getting those keys today. This worked out because it is the natural next step. I still will be the onsite, meet in the park or house photographer I had been, but now I have more options, and sometimes the truck will just be parked here instead. A special thank you to my wife, a key driver behind trp, there is no one I know that is more supportive and… well I was going to say patient, because you are supposed to when you say stuff like that, you know what, let’s leave it as supportive. It is not easy putting up with me… you know, she knows, trust me. Thanks Barbie.

Join me on twitter to stay updated on all the studio news, progress, specials, hours and an up coming open house. @TRPat243.

I joined a new team at the 9-5 a couple of weeks ago, the group is fairly new itself, so today we had a unique team building activity. We all spent the morning volunteering at The Greater Boston Food Bank, it was a rewarding experience and fun way to bond. After years of doing so many… “forced” corporate team building activities this was refreshing. It was also nice to use those Roche Bros – Grocery Store skills I have not tapped into for over 20 years. We boxed food for the elderly and put together “backpack” bags for kids to eat healthy on the weekends. Combined we packaged over 10,000 lbs of food, that equals almost 8k meals. Click the link above and check out the organization.